In The HotSeat – Sandy Nairn and Alan Bartlett from Global Opportunities Trust

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Speakers

Dr. Sandy Nairn | Non-Executive Board Member, Global Opportunities Trust

Sandy is a non-Executive Board Member and minority shareholder in Goodhart. For the avoidance of doubt his investment in Goodhart is in a personal capacity. Sandy is the Executive Director of Global Opportunities Trust plc. Sandy was previously Chief Executive Officer of Edinburgh Partners and Chairman of the Templeton Global Equity Group. Prior to establishing Edinburgh Partners he was Chief Investment Officer of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (November 2000 to March 2003). Between 1990 and 2000 he was employed by Templeton Investment Management where he was Executive Vice President and the Director of Global Equity Research. During his time at Templeton, he was responsible for overseeing all research activities within the Templeton Group, having spent the last year in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Before joining Templeton Investment Management, Sandy spent four years at Murray Johnstone as a portfolio manager and research analyst. Prior to that, he spent a year as an economist at the Scottish Development Agency.

Sandy graduated from the University of Strathclyde in 1982, and in 1985 he achieved a PhD in Economics from the University of Strathclyde/Scottish Business School. He is an Associate of the UK Society of Investment Professionals in the UK and is a CFA charterholder with the CFA Institute in the United States. In 2001 he published a book titled “Engines that Move Markets: Technology Investing from Railroads to the Internet and Beyond”. In 2012 he co-authored the book “Templeton’s Way With Money” with Jonathan Davis. And in 2021 he published the book titled 'The End of the Everything Bubble'.

Sandy is based in Edinburgh.

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Alan Bartlett | CEO, Global Opportunities Trust

Alan is one of the three-person portfolio management team for Goodhart’s Real Return strategy. He is a Partner and Board member of Goodhart Partners LLP, with responsibility for oversight of the investment function.

The Real Return strategy aims to compound real absolute returns over the long term. The net market exposure of the Real Return strategy is flexible. When investment ideas are abundant, the strategy focuses on return and is tolerant of relatively high market exposure. When investment ideas are scarce, the strategy has the flexibility to reduce market risk, including by raising cash or hedging. The portfolio itself invests in 6-10 key themes, with the emphasis being on how they blend across a range of scenarios to create an asymmetric return profile. The Real Return team believes this combination of focus and flexibility (we call it “agile investing”) will be key to navigating markets over the coming decades, given that many of the structural drivers that have supported broad and inflexible investment approaches over the last 30 years are now in reverse. 

Alan has a diverse investment background. The earlier part of his career focused on manager selection and running multi-manager funds. Alan started his career in 1995 as an investment consultant and became Head of Manager Research at two of the largest consulting businesses in the UK (Hymans Robertson and Aon) before joining a startup multi-manager firm as Director of Research in 2001. In 2005 he approached the asset management division of WestLB bank with a plan to develop a highly investment-oriented multi-manager fund range. Working for a German bank was highly educational through the financial crisis. The funds Alan developed and managed during this period had a thematic approach that invested in niche investment opportunities that were structurally advantaged.

Alan co-founded Goodhart Partners in 2009 via a management buyout. Over the next 10 years at Goodhart he focused on creating and supporting boutique investment managers more directly. He began by launching a Japanese equity business focused on deep value smaller companies. Goodhart then acquired a minority interest in a boutique manager that focuses on discounted assets – Asset Value Investors – and managed the transition of the investment team to a new generation. The businesses that Goodhart worked with had very different approaches and focuses, but they were all fundamental, longer term, and seeking to exploit specific structural investment opportunities. 

In 2019 Alan joined Templeton Global Equity Group as CIO, overseeing c$70bn of global equity mandates. He is one of the few people in the world who can say they have restructured the investment team and process of a large asset manager during a global pandemic. Alan left Templeton in 2023 and returned to Goodhart with a vision to build an “agile” global equity boutique suited to navigating markets over the coming decades. Alan’s approach to investing remains thematic and with a clear focus on the sorts of opportunities generalist investors often struggle with. He is a long-term, structural thinker, with a clear framework for managing portfolios. 

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